Irene Adler
| Irene Adler | |
|---|---|
| Sherlock Holmes character | |
| First appearance | "A Scandal in Bohemia" |
| Created by | Arthur Conan Doyle |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Singer |
| Nationality | American |
Irene Adler is a fictional character featured in the Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published in July 1891. She is one of the most notable female characters in the Sherlock Holmes series, despite appearing in only one story, and is frequently used as a romantic interest for Holmes in derivative works.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
According to "A Scandal in Bohemia," Adler was born in New Jersey in 1858. She followed a career in opera as a contralto, performing in La Scala, Milan, Italy, and a term as prima donna in the Imperial Opera of Warsaw, Poland, indicating that she was an extraordinary singer (in reality, there was no Imperial Opera in Warsaw). While in Warsaw she was described as "a well-known adventuress" (a term widely used at the time in ambiguous association with "courtesan"[1][2]). It was there that she became the lover of Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and King of Bohemia, who was staying in Warsaw for a period. According to the king, she had "the face of the most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men". The king eventually returned to his court in Prague. Adler, then in her late twenties, retired and moved to London.
On 20 March 1888 the king made an incognito visit to Holmes in London. He asked the famous detective to secure a photograph from Adler showing the king with her. The 30-year-old King explained to Holmes that he intended to marry Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the King of Scandinavia; the marriage would be threatened if his prior relationship with Adler should come to light.
Using his considerable skill for disguise, Holmes traced her movements and learned much of her private life, notably that she is about to be married. He then set up a faked incident to cause a diversion that would let him discover where the picture was hidden. Adler detected Holmes through his disguise; but before this, she treated him, as the supposed victim of a crime outside her home, with spontaneous care and solicitude.
When he came back to snatch the photo, he found Adler gone, along with her new husband and the goods, which had been replaced with a letter to Holmes, explaining how she had outwitted him, but also that she was happy with her new husband, who had more honourable feeling than her former lover. She added that she would not compromise the king, provided he did not try anything against her in the future.
[edit] Character sources
Adler's career as a theatrical performer who becomes the lover of a powerful aristocrat had several precedents. The most obvious source is Lola Montez, a dancer who became the lover of Ludwig I of Bavaria and influenced national politics. Montez is identified as a model for Adler by several writers.[3]
Closer to home is the singer Lillie Langtry, the lover of Edward, the Prince of Wales.[3] As Julian Wolff points out, it was well known that Langtry was born in Jersey (she was called the "Jersey Lily") and Adler is born in New Jersey.[2] Langtry had later had several other aristocratic lovers and her relationships had been speculated upon in the public press in the years before Doyle's story was published.
Along with the singer Ludmilla Hubel, alleged lover of Archduke John Salvator of Austria, these were suggested as Doyle's inspiration for Adler in his lifetime.[4]
[edit] Appearances
Irene Adler is also mentioned in the following stories:
- "A Case of Identity"
- "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
- "The Five Orange Pips" (probably; see below)
- "His Last Bow"
In "The Five Orange Pips", Holmes mentions that he has been beaten four times, thrice by a man and once by a woman. Since "The Five Orange Pips" is set in September 1887, before "A Scandal in Bohemia", which is set in March 1888, Holmes could not be referring to the specific appearance of Irene Adler during "A Scandal in Bohemia" if the chronology is correct. Doyle had made clear chronological mistakes in other Holmes stories, and no other woman is mentioned to ever be held in the same regard by Holmes or to have beaten Holmes. Also, in "A Case of Identity", Watson mentions that Adler is the only person he has ever known to have beaten Holmes.
[edit] Holmes's relationship to Adler
Adler earns Holmes's unbounded admiration. When the King of Bohemia says, "Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity she was not on my level?" Holmes replies scathingly that Miss Adler is indeed on a much different level from the King (by which he means higher—an implication lost on the King).
The beginning of "A Scandal in Bohemia" describes the high regard in which Holmes held Adler:
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer — excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
This "memory" is kept alive by a photograph of Irene Adler, which had been left for the King when she and her new husband took flight with the condemning photograph of her and the King. Sherlock had asked for and received this photo as his payment for his part in the case. This photograph is one of his most prized possessions. Holmes himself, who rarely noticed such things, told Watson that "she was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for."
[edit] Later appearances
[edit] Books
In his fictional biographies of Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe, William S. Baring-Gould puts forth an argument that Adler and Holmes reconnected after the latter's supposed death at Reichenbach Falls. They performed on stage together incognito, and became lovers. According to Baring-Gould, Holmes and Adler's union produced one son, Nero Wolfe, who would follow in his father's footsteps as a detective.
Irene Adler appears as an opera singer in The Canary Trainer, where she encounters Holmes during his three-year 'death' while he is working as a violinist in the Paris Opera House, and asks him to help her protect her friend and unofficial protege, Christine Daaé, from the 'Opera Ghost'.
A series of mystery novels written by Carole Nelson Douglas features Irene Adler as the protagonist and sleuth, chronicling her life after her famous encounter with Sherlock Holmes and which feature Holmes as a supporting character. The series includes Godfrey Norton as Irene's supportive barrister husband; Penelope "Nell" Huxleigh, a vicar's daughter and former governess who is Irene's best friend and biographer; and Nell's love interest Quentin Stanhope as supporting characters as well. Historical characters such as Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Alva Vanderbilt and Consuelo Vanderbilt, and journalist Nellie Bly, among others, also make appearances. In the books, Douglas strongly implies that Irene's birth mother was Lola Montez and her father possibly Ludwig I of Bavaria. Douglas provides Irene with a back story as a pint-size child vaudeville performer who was trained as an opera singer before going to work as a Pinkerton detective.
In a series of novels by John Lescroart, it is stated that Adler and Holmes had a son, Auguste Lupa, and it is implied that he later changes his name to Nero Wolfe. In the 2009 novel The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King, it is stated that Irene Adler, who is deceased when the book begins, once had an affair with main character Sherlock Holmes and gave birth to a son, Damian Adler, an artist now known as The Addler.
[edit] Films
In the 1976 film Sherlock Holmes in New York, Adler (Charlotte Rampling) helps Holmes and Watson to solve a bank robbery organised by Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty, after he takes her son hostage to prevent Holmes from investigating the case (Holmes and Watson later rescue the boy).
She is portrayed by Rachel McAdams in the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes. In that film, she is a skilled professional thief, as well as a divorcée. She is depicted as having mutual romantic feelings for Holmes, while at the same time employed by his future nemesis, Professor Moriarty. McAdams reprised the role in the 2011 sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows in which Moriarty appears to kill her with a poison that imitates the symptoms of tuberculosis.
[edit] Television and radio
In the 1984 Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett, the first episode, "A Scandal in Bohemia", Adler is played by Gayle Hunnicutt.
In the 1984 made-for-TV film The Masks of Death, a widowed Irene Adler, played by Anne Baxter, is a guest at Graf Udo Von Felseck (Anton Diffring)'s country house where Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Watson (John Mills) are investigating the supposed disappearance of a visiting prince. Although Holmes initially considers her a suspect, she proves her innocence and becomes an ally.
On radio, Sarah Badel portrayed Irene Adler in the 7 November 1990 BBC Radio broadcast of "A Scandal in Bohemia" opposite Clive Merrison's Holmes.
Irene Adler later appeared in the 1992 TV movie Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady, where she was played by Morgan Fairchild opposite Christopher Lee as Holmes.
Liliana Komorowska portrayed Adler as a Polish opera singer in The Hallmark Channel's 2001 made-for-TV film The Royal Scandal opposite Matt Frewer's Holmes.
In an episode of the PBS Kids show Wishbone actress Sally Nystuen Vahle portrays Irene Adler for the adaptation of "A Scandal in Bohemia" entitled "A Dogged Espose".
In "The 10 Li'l Grifters Job," the season 4 episode 2 of Leverage (TV series), the character Sophie portrays Irene Adler at the Murder Mystery Masquerade.
In 2007's BBC Television production Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars, Irene Adler (portrayed by Anna Chancellor) is the main villain of the piece and portrayed as one of Sherlock Holmes' arch enemies instead of a potential love interest.
In the 2012 second series of the BBC series Sherlock, Irene was portrayed by Lara Pulver opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. A dominatrix who serves high-end clients, she is initially sought to recover incriminating photos she possesses of a liaison between her and a female member of the Royal Family, but it is later revealed that she also possesses copies of various documents revealing more official secrets. Although she contacts Jim Moriarty for ideas about how to use this information, she is still attracted to Sherlock, to the point that she uses his name as the password for her phone, allowing Sherlock to provide Mycroft Holmes with all the information that Irene was planning to use. She is later presumed deceased after being captured by a terrorist cell, but a flashback reveals that Sherlock saved her, although only the two of them know the truth, having faked her death so thoroughly that even Mycroft was fooled. Unlike Doyle's original tale, in which she is American, in this version she is English.
[edit] References in popular culture
- In "Angels of Music" by Kim Newman, published in Tales of the Shadowmen Vol. 2 (2006), Erik, the Phantom of the Opera gathers his own Charlie's Angels-like team of female agents, the so-called "Angels of Music", consisting of Christine Daaé, Irene Adler and Trilby O'Ferrall. She also encounters Erik and Christine in Nicholas Meyer's 1993 novel, The Canary Trainer.
- In Shadows over Baker Street, Irene Adler appears in the short story "Tiger! Tiger!" by Elizabeth Bear, which is set in India in 1882.
- Irene Adler appears in the short story "The Adventure of the Retiring Detective" by Michael Mallory, which is set in 1903, and is included in the collection The Adventures of the Second Mrs. Watson.
- In the graphic novels "Sherlock Holmes: The Baker Street Irregulars" by Franklin Watts and created by Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood, Irene Adler is brought back to London by Mycroft Holmes, to assist the Baker Street Irregulars solve crimes in the 'missing Holmes' years between The Final Problem and The Empty House. In these books she forms a friendship with both Dr. Watson and Inspector Lestrade.
- DC Comics featured Irene Adler as a character in one of Eclipso's story arcs. Here, Adler is possessed by one of Eclipso's black diamonds, killing both the King of Bohemia and her husband, before Dr. Watson is himself possessed by Eclipso and stops her from killing Holmes. She later throws herself through a skylight in order to save Holmes from the possessed Dr. Watson, dying from the fall.
- Irene Adler is mentioned twice in the Case Closed manga series, once in "The Murder at Mycroft Manor", where a book about her 'mocking' portrayal was the motive for the murders, and once in the feature film Case Closed: The Phantom of Baker Street, where she is a player character inside the VR game's Victorian England level. She is shown as the main character Shinichi Kudo's mother Yukiko Kudo.
- Irene Adler is referenced as one of the inspirations for Irene, the central character of Joanna Russ's 1978 novel The Two of Them.
- Irene Adler is also the name of the main female character in the novel The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte. The story was loosely adapted by Roman Polanski as The Ninth Gate.
- In the fifth season episode of House M.D., entitled "Joy to the World", Wilson makes up a character named Irene Adler who is described as a patient once treated by House in Christmas of 2001, whom he fell for but never ended up with. More significantly, the first patient in the show's series premiere is named Rebecca Adler, a nod to Irene by the writers.
- Marvel Comics had a character named Irene Adler, codenamed Destiny, a foe exclusive to the X-Men. The former lover of Mystique and adoptive mother of Rogue, she was a mutant precognitive who was formerly a detective in Austria.
- In the season 4 episode of Leverage 'The 10 Lil Grifters Job' the character Sophie dresses as Irene Adler for a Murder Mystery gala, and describes her costume as a serious detective costume by stating she's the only woman smarter than Sherlock Holmes.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Piya Pal-Lapinski, The exotic woman in nineteenth-century British fiction and culture: a reconsideration, UPNE, 2005, p.71.
- ^ a b Christopher Redmond, In Bed with Sherlock Holmes: Sexual Elements in Arthur Conan Doyle's Stories, Dundurn Press, 2002, pp.57-66. Redmond explains the term as implying "something between a social climber and a high class tart".
- ^ a b Christopher Redmond, Sherlock Holmes Handbook, Dundurn Press Ltd., 30 Oct 2009, p. 51; The new annotated Sherlock Holmes: The adventures of Sherlock Holmes ; The memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, W.W. Norton, 2005, p.17.
- ^ The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle, Random House, 2010.
[edit] External links
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